In 1954, Weiss helped to write up a 1951
Geological Survey investigation of the
Phosphoria Formation undertaken on behalf of the
US Atomic Energy Commission. By 1956 she was working as Acquisitions Officer for the
ASTIA Reference Center at the
Library of Congress. At some point in the 1950s, she took on the surname Swanson, presumably as the result of marriage. She joined the Office of Research and Development at the
US Patent Office, becoming interested in
information retrieval there. Swanson was Project Supervisor at the
Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) in the early 1960s, working with
Harold Wooster. There, from 1959 onwards, she ensured the funding of
Douglas C. Englebart's research into human-machine collaboration at the
Stanford Research Institute, apparently surreptitiously rescuing Englebart's application from the 'rejection' pile to put it in the 'accepted for final review' pile. Swanson helped Englebert turn his 1962 SRI report, 'Human Intellect: A
Conceptual Framework', into a book chapter in 1963. Throughout the 1960s Swanson continued to organize funding for computer scientists and cybernetic researchers. She helped fund
Marvin Minsky, and was a friend and sponsor for
Heinz von Foerster at the
Biological Computer Laboratory. She also organized funding for the work of
Gotthard Günther and
Ernst von Glasersfeld. Ernst von Glasersfeld recalled her sponsoring his own research alongside that of
Gordon Pask,
Warren McCulloch,
Max Black and David Rothenberg, and introducing these disparate researchers to each other. In 1966, she was acting director of the Directorate of Information Sciences at the AFOSR, as Harold Wooster took up the post of Director previously held by Thomas K. Burgess. By 1967 she was a Project Scientist under Wooster, along with Eliot Sohmer. Another colleague was Lea M. Bohnert. Addressing a 1970 workshop for military librarians, Frank Kurt Cylke paid tribute to the work of Wooster and Swanson at AFOSR: "Of course, Harold Wooster and Rowena Swanson are no longer concentrating their efforts upon the theoretical and practical problems that are present. Margrett Zenich, however, is still fighting
the good fight." Gordon Pask, writing in 1973, acknowledged the patronage of the AFOSR's European office and emphasised the particular importance of Swanson's influence there: ==Academic librarianship==